Last week, Dave was contacted by a reporter who wanted to interview us about our use of foursquare, the location-based social networking service.

I spoke with the reporter, Stephanie Miles, this week to answer a few questions. The interview is featured online at StreetFight.com, a site that looks at the business of hyperlocal. Read it here!

We haven't done much with foursquare lately. We were one of the first businesses in Lawrence to use it, but it's hard to figure out a special to offer customers when you run a bar. Liquor laws in Kansas don't allow us to discount drinks unless everyone is entitled to the same discount, all day, so that kind of defeats the purpose of checking in on foursquare.

The first special we ran rewarded frequent customers: for every third check-in between 5-9 p.m., the customer could show their check-in to the bartender and get free jukebox credits. People love our jukebox, so this seemed like a fun way to reward them for coming in regularly on a shift where we aren't usually very busy.

Another special that we ran didn't reward the customer with anything but warm fuzzies, but it was a success. We borrowed the idea from the Legends shopping center in Kansas City. For every check-in during a period of time, we donated a buck to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. We raised almost $100 with this special, which is great.

Some of our staff and friends are participating in this year's Walk MS, a fundraiser for the National MS Society. This is the second year we've put together a team for the Walk, and so far I think we've raised more money than last year. But, in my recap of last year's event, I failed to mention our grand fundraising total, so who knows.

We've raised $2,636 so far! You can still donate if you're so inclined.

And this year, we added a new twist for our social media-obsessed friends: for every check-in on foursquare through April 30, the bar will donate a buck to the cause. We're close to $100!

Our walkers will descend on the bar afterward for a post party, which will morph into a pre-party for the event of the season: Jimmy Buffett's return to Kansas City!

We've chartered two buses to carry parrotheads to the show, and our pre-party officially starts at 2 p.m. We'll have food, drinks and parrothead hat-making supplies, and the buses will leave at 4:30 p.m. for the Sprint Center.

We even printed special commemorative T-shirts for the event! They're available in red, orange and green, and in a variety of sizes, for $12 each. The Sandbar logo is on the front, and a great graphic of "Stage Diving with Jimmy Buffett" is on the back.

We hit a social media milestone (in our eyes, anyway) last night: the one-thousandth check-in on the location-based social networking service Foursquare.

Foursquare, for the non-geeks among you, is an application that lets you "check in" at places you go- bars, restaurants, retail stores, gas stations- and share it with your friends. You can earn virtual badges for your check-ins, like the Swarm Badge we earned last spring when 50 people were checked into the Sandbar at the same time.

So last night, I noticed that check-ins at the Sandbar were quickly approaching 1000. I wasn't sure if we'd reach that number last night, but sure enough, Erika checked in and became the one-thousandth check-in.

(To be clear, these are not unique check-ins; the number of different people who have checked in on Foursquare is 372. But that tells me that a) there's still a lot of different people who have checked in to a bar that holds 49 people, and b) we have a lot of loyal, repeat customers.)

I sent a quick tweet to Erika thanking her for checking and offering her a free t-shirt. She responded almost immediately and Dave hooked her up with a prize.

See, social media can pay off with free stuff. We also have a Foursquare special that gets you free jukebox tunes for checking in, and we're working on some other fun and creative things too.

Last Saturday, I stopped by the bar for a quick errand. A group of young people were sitting at the bar with drinks, talking to Coleen and fiddling with their phones. I heard one of the guys telling Coleen that he was checking in on Foursquare and that he was trying to become "mayor."

I was intrigued, because I haven't overheard customers talking about "checking in" and "foursquare" before. I asked him if he'd earned jukebox credits yet (a free perk after checking in three times between 5-9 p.m.) and he said he thought so.

The young man then said, "I think you should get a free drink or shot for being mayor!"

Unfortunately, many people don't understand that we can't do things like that because of Kansas liquor laws. We can't give away alcohol, and we can't even discount it. A drink has to be the same price, for everyone, all day. Thus, no happy hours.

Those are just a few of the ways you can participate online for our 21st birthday, whether you're at the party or halfway across the world.

We definitely want to see your pictures and videos, so be sure to tweet, Facebook, upload, or email them to us! And, we'll also be looking for a few good bloggers to write a recap of their party experience for us. So keep track of any funny stories from the party, because we'll be asking for them!

Check back for ways you can win PRIZES for social-medializing with us!

Last month, we announced our jukebox specials on Whrrl, a location based social networking site. We don't know if anyone's actually redeemed jukebox credits on Whrrl, because they don't have any type of analytics available. And, unfortunately, not very many people use the service.

However, we've got some more exciting news!

Our request to add a special on Foursquare was finally approved! Foursquare is one of the largest location based social networking sites, and it's definitely the one that has the most activity in Lawrence. For those of you who aren't familiar with Foursquare, it basically allows you to "check in" when you go somewhere. Your friends- or the world- can see where you are, you can earn virtual badges, and sometimes you can even get free stuff.

And now you can get free stuff at the Sandbar. No, not alcohol, because that's illegal. But the next best thing to drinks at the Sandbar is music at the Sandbar, and now you can get some for free.

Every third time you check in at The Sandbar between 5-9 p.m., you earn five free jukebox credits. When the special offer pops up after you check in, just show your phone to the bartender and they'll add the credits to the jukebox for you.

The special is currently only valid at the Sandbar in Lawrence.

If you're on Foursquare already, you can find our page here. Stop in sometime and make sure to check in!

We have something fun to announce: you can earn free jukebox credits at The Sandbar (in Lawrence only, for now).

If you use Twitter, you're probably familiar with location-based social networking tools like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Whrrl. The big buzz about these types of networks is the growing ability for merchants to offer freebies and rewards to customers who "check in" with one of these services. Kansas liquor laws don't allow us to give away or discount alcohol, but we can offer merchandise.

You don't have to be a Twitter user to use these apps. Check out their websites for more information about how to use them.

So what are we offering?

The first service we're offering rewards on is Whrrl (because right now it's my favorite). Check in to the Sandbar between 5-9 p.m., any day of the week, and you can earn 5 free jukebox credits. You have to show the offer to the bartender, and he/she will load your credits on to the jukebox.

Here are some screenshots of what you'll see in the Whrrl iPhone app and what you need to do:

1. First, check in on your app. You can see below that I'm "checked in" at The Sandbar. Click on the section circled below in the first picture.

2. A page comes up that shows details about the Sandbar- who else has checked in, and tabs for more information. Click on the Recs/Offers tab (circled in picture 2).

3. Once you've navigated to the Recs/Offers tab, you'll see our Special Offers! You can also see what users have marked the offer as "to do" or "did it." Click on the offer- if we had multiple offers available they would all show up here, but right now we only have one to choose.

4. A new page opens with the offer and a "Redeem Now" button.

Click on the Redeem Offer Now button, and the next page that comes up is what you need to show the bartender.

This page tells you how many times you've checked in to the location, and what your status is in the "society." It also instructs you to show this page to redeem your offer.

I've requested to set up a reward on Foursquare, too, but I haven't heard back from the company about it. However, at least one customer has seen it, so it's out there. Every third check-in on Foursquare earns you five free jukebox credits. I don't have a screenshot from Foursquare yet because I haven't seen the offer.

Please be patient with our staff, and please only redeem one offer per day, per check-in service! These promotions are very new and different for us, and it may take some time for all of our staff to really understand how this works. It's a learning process for all of us!

Nerd alert: this post won't make sense to many of you. But it's an interesting account of the activities at the Sandbar last Thursday night when the Free State Social community tweetup took place.

Foursquare is a location-based social networking site. Users "check in" when they go places, and their friends can see where they are. The game aspect is one appeal of Foursquare- check in's accumulate points, which in turn allow the user to earn different badges. One of these badges is the elusive "Swarm Badge," which can only be earned if 50 or more people are checked into the same place at the same time. It's like a Foursquare flash mob.

Our neighbors in Kansas City have organized several events to try to earn the Swarm Badge, and each time they've fallen short by just a few people. Lots of people thought the Swarm Badge would be earned at the Free State Social conference last week- since many of the attendees use Foursquare and 300 people were at the conference- but it didn't happen.

I never thought we'd earn the Swarm Badge at Thursday night's community tweetup- after all, if we didn't get it at the conference where all the attendees were in the same place at the same time, it didn't seem possible to unlock it at the tweetup, where participants were spread all over downtown Lawrence in a million different places.

However, people kept coming to the Sandbar on Thursday night, and our friend Jacinta sent the first tweet about swarming the Sandbar. More tweets and retweets followed, and more people kept coming to the bar and checking in. Suddenly we had 16 people checked in, then 33, then 45. The Swarm Badge seemed like a real possibility. Even people who don't normally use Foursquare checked in to help with the cause, and at 9:50 p.m. the 50th person checked in and unlocked the Swarm Badge for everyone:

A funny irony- our legal capacity is 49, and 50 people are needed to unlock the badge. There may have been more than 49 people in the bar, but the patio was busier than it's ever been too.

I think we're the first place to unlock the Swarm Badge in Kansas, from what I've heard. This might seem trivial, and perhaps it is. But it was a fun activity on Thursday- it encouraged people to network with new people and gave them something to talk about, and it helped add to the sense of community that was already created by Free State Social.

And, of course, it was great for business on Thursday. I saw several tweets from people who only came to the Sandbar so they could check in and try to get the Swarm Badge- I don't know if they bought anything or not, but at least they were exposed to our crazy little world for a little bit of time. Maybe they'll be back sometime.

If you were there, leave a comment and let us know what you thought. If you want to write a guest post about your experience at the Sandbar, we're up for that too.

If you follow any kind of social media, you've probably heard about "checking in" and location-based social networks. Maybe you've even been teased by your friends about being the "mayor" of a location in town (yes, I speak from experience).

But back in the days when Foursquare was still a playground game with a bouncy red ball, and Yelp was something you did when you hit your funny bone on the desk, people were checking in to The Sandbar in a decidedly old-fashioned way.

Dave and Peach long ago figured out that the way to attract more customers was to first attract the ladies; the men would soon follow. They came up with a game to encourage the girls to come in and stay awhile, and one that would reward them for time well spent.

They set up an old time clock near the door and created time cards for regular female customers; upon arrival, the ladies would punch in at the time clock, and punch out when they left. After accumulating a certain amount of time at the bar, the girls could pick out gift shop merchandise like t-shirts as a prize.

I honestly don't remember this gimmick- so either it was pre-1996, or I wasn't cool enough to have a time card. Dave doesn't remember how long it lasted, but it was fun to hear about an old-school style promotion.

Of course, now Dave and Peach think it would be funny to bring it back, since I've been trying to sell them on the idea of offering incentives to customers who check in or become mayor on a social network like Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl, or Yelp.

Thoughts? How many of you use a location-based social network? Or would you rather punch a time clock?